Here’s the story: I met my boyfriend in a park in Chicago. I’d like to tell you that we met by chance, swimming in the lake, or through mutual friends, or at a bar. We didn’t.
Samuel Fallours and Louis Renard
Originally published in 1719, with a second edition in 1754, Poissons, Ecrevisses et Crabes can lay claim to being the earliest known publication in colour on fish — in this case, celebrating those hailing from the waters of the East Indies. This wonderful book is the creation of Louis Renard — a publisher, bookseller, and spy for the British Crown (employed by Queen Anne, George I and George II). All in all, across the two volumes, the book contains 100 plates bearing 460 hand-coloured engravings — a total of 415 fishes, 41 crustaceans, two stick insects, a dugong and, in a final foldout, a solitary mermaid. The engravings were supposedly based on drawings from life by the artist Samuel Fallours (active 1703–20). There is no main text as such, only that found in and amongst the images, which tends to be anecdotal, mainly focusing on recipes as opposed to science. From Public Domain Review.
Blind Tiger (and other poems)
Nobody saw you coming or going, and you had no idea who was hiding in the dark cabin
Tragic Magic (excerpt)
This was my initiation into a world where the way people felt about each other didn’t necessarily come from personal involvement.